Tag: management

Working For the Boss Every Night and Day*

Getting pinned up against the end of a run of shelving in a half-fitted out store might not be everyone’s idea of good management training but it provided a lesson that came in handy over the next thirty years.  It wasn’t even my line manager doing the pinning.  But if it takes a village to raise a child it takes more than one senior manager to teach you about company culture and personal discipline.

Over four decades, I started a new job 12 times in nine different companies (three of them invited me back for reasons that are hard to fathom).  With 21 direct bosses over that time, I’ve had nine leave or be replaced and nine where I left for greener grass or personal reasons.  Maybe I’ve been fortunate but all the social media posts about people leaving bad bosses (rather than companies) has always felt strange in the context of my own curiosity, ambition and occasional arrogance about chasing the next opportunity.

Beauty in the Beasts

There have been two bosses that I would think of as being directly responsible for me leaving a company.  There was also one organization where I couldn’t stay but my boss had my sympathy for being totally outgunned, outmanoeuvred and possibly even bullied into submission.  These examples account for three of the five occasions I’ve jumped ship without a lifeboat (or a job to go to).     

The dismal duo of bosses were poor in very different ways.  One was very competent and went on to be a successful CEO but was always away, made no effort to help me settle into the company and, as it turned out, had inflated the importance of the role and opportunity when I was being interviewed.  The other was of limited ability in their own specialist field and a micro-manager who didn’t understand marketing and communications but was happy to take the glory when things went well while wielding the stick when things were less than perfect.

If those types of bosses are the beasts of a career, they also lend a certain beauty to management development in learning from them how not to behave.  It’s not very comfortable at the time but taking the lessons can help you avoid making the same mistakes.  There is also something to be said for working out if what looks like an inadequate boss is doing their best to protect in impossible circumstances.          

In fairness, I doubt that I matched up to their expectations either and would have to accept that from time to time I have been a less than perfect subordinate.  Hard working certainly but not always the best at accepting authority and, particularly in my younger days, a little too likely to burn the candle at both ends.  The only defence was that the early days were at a time when you were forgiven most things as long as you turned up on time and got the job done.

Beginnings and Belonging

My very first boss, Tony Dobbin at Tesco, was immensely hard working and benevolent.  When the company opened the UK’s largest superstore at Weston Favell he would lead the photography sessions, get home at 4am and still be at his desk in Cheshunt by 8.30am.  He also very gently taught me the nuances of word selection when writing promotional material where the word “aroma” was definitely an improvement on my draft about the “smell of freshly baked bread.”

Despite a year on a journalism course my judgement of text was rough round the edges and I had an upbringing which meant I briefed a leaflet for a celebratory leaving event as a dinner when it was at lunchtime**.  It was a good job that I was keen to take on any task, enjoyed driving long distances and had no real sense of my own limitations or naivety.  Long hours, weekend working and full commitment were expected but usually rewarded.  

It was the broader retail management of the company who gave me a real sense of purpose and belonging.  They ensured I got my first company car – a 950cc Ford Fiesta with a foot-pump operated windscreen washer.  The price was weekends photographing charity cricket matches with suppliers, evenings shepherding councillors around new stores and always being available for late night discussions about the latest food crisis.

One certainty is that in the best companies, senior management outside the direct line manager pay attention to newcomers.  There is nothing better or more reassuring than having your existence and your work recognized by someone from elsewhere in the business.  It eliminates silos, encourages collaboration and creates the best sense of company culture.   

Create Your Own Pressure   

But the defining lesson in my first job was much more personal and came a few days before the opening of a new store.  I was with a senior regional director who was a company legend for his business success and who had been very supportive. He was well over 6’and it is fair to say that I am somewhat less lofty.

It was total mayhem as painters, electricians, merchandisers, tilers and chippies raced to complete the fitting out in a breathtakingly short timescale.  At the time Tesco was opening two or three stores a month and every occasion was a race against the clock with most of the new store team living out of suitcases as they moved from town to town.  Only after I left retailing would I realise that not every business worked at this type of pace.

As we walked along the bank of half-built checkouts with their trailing wires he turned to me and said, “Do you feel the pressure, Al?”***  As a 23-year-old who got on well with him I felt this was a good moment to try and be smart.  My response was calculated to try and be sophisticated, “Pressure.  What’s that?”

In a moment he had turned and physically pushed me up against the racks at the end of an aisle of shelving.  My recollection is that he had my lapels and I was on my tiptoes as he loomed over me but he was calm and urgent.  He just growled, “If you don’t feel the pressure, you’ve got to make your own pressure.”

I’ve told the story a number of times since and am usually asked why I didn’t report it to someone.  My response is that this was someone I respected giving me forceful advice about humility, self-discipline and respect for the work.  It was over as quickly as it began and my overwhelming sensation was that it had been done for my own good.     

I wouldn’t recommend the physical element but when the book Radical Candor came out, I recognized that at an early stage in my career I had been shown the value of a manager caring enough personally, to challenge behaviour immediately and directly.  The underlying message was even more important.  Your boss is not responsible for motivating you – you are.

NOTES

* A lyric from Happy by the Rolling Stones.  One of those joyous moments when Keith gets to sing. Not sure he’s had too many bosses in his life.

** This is one of the classic differences between U and non-U English.

*** He was one of only three people that called me Al (and even then only occasionally).  I am mildly fixated on calling people by their full names unless they ask me not to.

Image by Miro Alt from Pixabay 

SEEING GREATNESS, RADICAL CANDOR AND GETTING PERSONAL

It was a good time of year to be introduced to ‘How I Got Into College’, an edition of This American Life from September 2013. It tells the tale of a student – Emir Kamenica – and how a stolen library book got him into his dream school. Emir is a Bosnian refugee who is now the Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

The narrator and interviewer is Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball (2003), The Big Short (2010) and The Undoing Project (2016). His introductory chapter in Liar’s Poker (1989) is among the most riveting piece of writing I have ever read. He is a marvellous teller of stories and this is no exception.

My interest was particularly taken by Emir’s memory of a single incident where a teacher took a personal interest in him. He tells how that moment changed his life and set him on the road to a doctorate from Harvard. The programme carries a surprise revelation that makes it a complex tale about belief, truth and memory.

When I read a quote attributed to Edmund Lee a few days later it seemed serendipitous. The end of the quote runs, ‘most of all surround yourself with those who see greatness within you even when you don’t see it yourself’. That does not mean people who show blind loyalty or supine agreement but those who care enough to challenge you and show you new ways of being.

The best leaders are able to see the ‘greatness’ within their colleagues. They recognise what people around them are capable of and have the personal courage and management skill to back their judgement. In doing this they usually give the individuals increased self-awareness and the confidence to more fully realise their potential.

Even in these self-revelatory days people are sometimes shy about telling the stories of how they were inspired, or which moments transformed their life. But these are tales worth recounting and sharing because they can help guide behaviour and are a good way of suggesting why looking for the potential in our friends and colleagues is a responsibility we should take seriously.

Without aspiring to compete with Emir’s extraordinary tale of struggle and achievement I recall my own pivotal moment at school with equal clarity (the irony of that statement will not be lost on those who have heard the programme). As a totally aimless and academically under-achieving 18-year-old I had decided to go to polytechnic to take a business studies course. In those pre-1992 days polytechnics in the UK were decidedly second-class to universities and my ‘choice’ was based upon having no better ideas for avoiding unemployment.

Shortly afterwards an unmistakeable New Zealand accent at full volume cut through the noise of several hundred children changing classes at my large comprehensive school in Essex. My English teacher had spotted me half-way down the stairs and had a point to make. ‘Alan Preece,’ she hollered. ‘You are not going to do business studies. You are going to be a journalist. See me later.’

Yvonne Cull, the English teacher, felt that young people needed to be treated like adults but required intervention, direction and unflinching honesty. Her classes were bracing sessions where the themes of power, manipulation, lust and love in Shakespeare were reinforced by making us interrogate our own teenage desires and passions. Lessons were often provocative and seldom comfortable, but she never stopped trying to help us understand that the stories were about the human condition and people just like us.

When she confronted me with the possibility of becoming a journalist she did not spare my blushes. She was candid about the need to overcome my lack of application, my mistaken belief that native wit was a substitute for research, and my tendency to continue defending positions long after they had been overrun by better arguments.  But she filled me with a belief, based on her personal opinions, that I had the skills to do a job which involved enquiry, balancing opinions, and writing.

Mrs Cull went even further. She had researched the options and found a suitable course run by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ). She made me sit in her home one evening to complete the application, she posted it, wrote a letter of recommendation and prepared me for the interview. Having secured a place, I failed my A-levels, but she pushed me to re-take them so I could join the course a year later.

Nowadays, I might consider this moment in my history as an example of radical candor – ‘the ability to challenge directly and show you care personally at the same time’. Kim Scott’s 2017 book on the subject is a good read and captures the subject well. As well as developing the theory it recounts a terrific example involving Sheryl Sandberg who was her boss at Google.

I didn’t go on to be the investigative journalist that Mrs Cull thought I could become. Armed with my NCTJ course award I secured a place in the press office of Tesco which became the stepping stone to public relations, marketing and eventually board level roles as COO and CEO. Throughout those years I was armed with the knowledge that, despite their own busy life, someone had thought well enough of me to share their belief in my potential.

There have, of course, been other ‘sliding door’ moments in my career when senior colleagues have made a firm intervention to show me a different way of being. Most of these occasions have been intensely personal, very direct and driven by their belief that I could do better and be more. For those leaders there was a role for training courses, theories and structure but there were also times when vivid, focused, personal engagement was their way of making a difference.

 

 

 

 

 

Accidents Will Happen

In response to Jillian Braverman’s recent post about learning more from mistakes than successes I committed to select some examples from my own career. The whole process was a good reminder about the benefits of reflective practice. Getting better at accepting personal fallibility is a reasonable defence against being careless, neglectful or just plain stupid.

It also helps to avoid the trap of ‘unconscious competency’ where a level of mastery and familiarity encourages repeating actions without conscious evaluation. I’m grateful to Andy Green for introducing me to the notion of ‘super-competency’ where someone who is highly accomplished in a discipline continually challenges and refreshes their skill. The best people never stop learning.

Some of the greatest creative forces in history have also pointed to the danger of believing excellence in a skill or a way of thinking is an end in itself. Picasso observed that, ‘It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.’ Leonardo da Vinci said that, “The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.” Throughout their lives they were involved in a relentless search for improvement.

While few can match the creativity and inventiveness of these titans my small contribution here is three occasions when errors have held valuable lessons and changed my way of thinking.

CLARIFY THE BRIEF AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
Late in the process of producing an Annual Report, I was asked by an HR Director to arrange a short version to be sent to all 70,000+ staff. Under time pressure and wanting to impress I re-drafted the text as a summary, re-purposed the existing visuals and got the design agency to do layout for free. I felt pretty good about having got the job done in budget and on-time.

But at final proof stage the HR Director said he had wanted something original and entirely focused on the employee audience. My annoyance at time and effort wasted was only exceeded by my embarrassment at failing to clarify the brief. Always understand the purpose and intended outcomes of a job before starting it and make sure that you have clarified the time and cost implications of any course of action.

Kipling is instructive:
I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

(“I keep six honest serving-men.” Rudyard Kipling. First published in the Ladies’ Home Journal, April 1900)

It is also usually worth reminding budget-holders making late requests that the iron triangle comprising cost, speed and quality can usually only have two side fulfilled at the same time.

BEWARE HUBRIS AND LACK OF PREPARATION
One of my employer’s open-plan office culture led to the wearing of ‘red caps’ to indicate you were not to be disturbed. Local interest had me appearing on regional TV where, on the spur of the moment, I stated that we thought it was a great gift for the upcoming Father’s Day. Slightly carried away by my own cleverness I said that we’d be selling them in one of our local stores that Saturday.

The scramble to source red caps, at anything like a reasonable cost, involved the whole team for the next two days. Particularly when I decided that they needed to have a big D, for Dad, emblazoned on them. But I took delivery of the caps late one night and found myself in a nearby store early the next morning.

Given a prime spot near the entrance and alongside the clothing section I was confident that I would be sold out and back home by noon. 12 hours later I had not sold one, despite the asking price plummeting from a fiver (which was at cost) to 50p. I could not bring myself to just give them away but had learnt many lessons.

Making a claim without thinking it through is not a good place to start. Compounding the situation by adding specifications, something akin to ‘mission drift’, is equally unwise. But most importantly I learnt at first hand and on my own time how hard it is to make money by selling things. It was an early step on a long road from being in public relations to leading a £100m turnover commercial organisation.

MUTUAL APPRECIATION AND ENTHUSIASM ARE RARELY ENOUGH
After several years in one job I was slightly restless and applying for anything that looked interesting. When the call came it was welcome, the process rapid and it felt like love at first sight. The lure of global opportunity and building a team from a low base seemed too good to miss.

Sadly, I had missed that what attracted the company to me were things I had done earlier in my career but were not my intended direction of development. An early visit to the parent company disabused me of my belief that I would be able to spread my wings internationally. And the ‘low base’ was destined to stay that way for the foreseeable future.

In relationships it is in the interests of both parties to temper good rapport with critical thinking. I was flattered by the attention and I did not ask enough questions to understand their situation. As importantly, I was not wholly transparent about my expectations.

Whether it’s a new job, a business partner or a personal friend there is not enough goodwill or money in the world to make it work long term unless aspirations, values and practicalities are honestly shared. And you have to be prepared to walk away however much you like people and want things to work out.

*****

Mistakes are part of learning and it is reasonable to expect that if you are pushing hard and on the edges of your ability or experience you will make more of them. As long as you have not staked what you or your company cannot afford to lose, every error brings insight and few are terminal. It’s always good advice to believe that what matters is what you do next.

Rage on the Stage or Pride from the Side

The English Premier League has attracted some of the highest profile football coaches in the world. A combination of money, glamour and opportunity have created the perfect platform for them to work with some of the best players in the world. But these coaches increasingly display even bigger egos than their players and engage in outbursts of anger and unrestrained emotion on the pitch after games have finished. Are there any lessons for management?

It is the tendency to march onto the pitch at the end of the match that has been the most striking development. Maybe they feel they have to express their leadership prowess as a coda to the game and the efforts of their team. Or it could be the ultimate in scent marking, allowing the team to do its best before marching onto the pitch to display their alpha male credentials in front of the world. They know that the cameras are following them and that they will have opportunities in the press room to express their opinions verbally but they cannot resist the opportunity to physically impose themselves on the field.

This weekend we saw Jurgen Klopp of Liverpool being pulled away from abusing the referee after some controversial decisions at the end of the match with Tottenham Hotspur. He had pulled his own players away from the referee so clearly didn’t think they were up to the job. And he suffered the ignomy of being ushered away by a peer (Pochettino, the Spurs manager) who could see how embarrassing Jurgen’s behaviour had become. Jurgen has previous behaviour in using his 6’4” frame to intimidate officials to take into account.
Recently we have also seen the reputedly cerebral Pep Guardiola of Manchester City, a team setting the pace in the Premier League, on the pitch berating and physically manhandling a player of the opposition team. The player, rather than giving Pep the shove he probably deserved, maturely explained that he had been carrying out the plan of his own manager with focus and discipline. It was an admirable demonstration of restraint by the 23 year old Redmond faced with a ranting 47-year old who should know better.

And Antonio Conte of Chelsea has become renowned for cavorting on the pitch after games and celebrating with maniacal energy. Perhaps he is trying to capture some of the glory he misses from his days as a five times championship winning player with Juventus in Italy. Or maybe he is making up for the disappointment of being left out of the Italy team for the 1994 World Cup final.

There is no doubt that these coaches are driven, intense and charismatic characters who are among the best in the world at their trade. I would not argue that they should reduce their passion for the game or their commitment to excellence and winning. But their behaviour after matches tends to make them more of a focus than the teams they coach and does not lead anywhere good by way of example. And that is the antithesis of management.

Perhaps their actions are more a demonstration of their insecurity and need to maintain position. Research has suggested that the motivation to seek or maintain one’s rank promotes aggressive behaviors. Approximately 48% of men and 45% of women identify status/reputation concerns as the primary reason for their last act of aggression, and the experimental induction of status motives increases aggressive tendencies in both men and women (Griskevicius et al., 2009). (quoted in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Two Ways to the Top: Evidence that Dominance and Prestige are Distinct yet Viable Avenues to Social Rank and Influence, Cheng JT.

So, is seems possible that the actions of Guardiola, Klopp, Conte et al are not, as they often claim, about their ‘passion’ for the game but a naked outpouring of anger intended to maintain their position as alpha male leading their troupe. It seems likely that the era of the celebrity head coach, and the increasing fear of loss of status if matches are not won, has created a feedback loop where managers feel the need to beat their breasts and roar at the end of each game. And possibly this is because those with the biggest egos and gift for self-publicity get the biggest jobs where being under the spotlight means purchasing top players and fitting them in rather than building teams, creating value and nurturing talent from the rawest recruits.

Those who have had the honour and pleasure of developing outstanding individuals and merging their talents to create a dynamic, focused and winning group understand that feeling of pride and protectiveness. But the best managers I have known have had the knack of standing back at the moment of victory to allow their team to bask in the glory of success. They have also been adept at taking setbacks, understanding the development needs and rapidly refocusing the team on the next challenge.

In that respect I recall a moment at ASDA in the early 1990s when we had smashed the Xmas trading targets and the head office marketing and trading teams were pretty smug at our own brilliance. The ASDA team of that era was filled over time with CEOs and Chairmen in waiting, Mike Coupe (Sainsbury), Steven Cain (Carlton Communications, Coles, Metcash), Justin King CBE (Sainsbury), Andy Bond (ASDA, Poundland), Andy Hornby (HSBC, Alliance Boots, Coral), Richard Baker (Boots Group, Groupe Aeroplan), Ian McLeod (Celtic FC, Halfords, Coles). The sense of self-satisfaction was ended abruptly when Allan Leighton, at that time the Marketing Director but later serial CEO or Chairman across organisations as diverse as Pandora, Royal Mail and LastMinute.com, walked into a meeting with hand-written, photocopied notes to tell us we were coasting through the new year and needed to regroup and step up our efforts. It was a good lesson.

The best managers I have known have absorbed the pressure when their team is struggling but stepped back at the moment of glory. They may share the celebration and mutual admiration in private but their public position is to hand credit to their ‘players’. Of course, they have been prepared to lead from the front when necessary and have been fiercely protective of their people. But generally speaking their obsession was with selecting and developing good people, ensuring integration, enabling performance, setting standards and consistently looking towards the next challenge.

What they have never done is encourage senseless, unstructured fights with authority (which is different to disagreeing with the status quo and planning how to change things); openly displaying triumphalism and hubris; or, acting with anything less than due regard for the quality of the opposition and the danger they present. Those principles have never prevented them being fiercely determined, robust, resilient and committed to victory.